<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <link rel="icon" type="image/ico" href="favicon.ico" />
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
        <title>CrowdCycle: Vote on bike routes</title>
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0;">
        <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">

        <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/jquery.mobile.min.css">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.mobile.css" type="text/css">
		
		</head>
    <body>
        <h1 id="title">CrowdCycle</h1>
        <div id="tags">
          mobile, jquery
        </div>
        <p id="shortdesc">
          Vote on bike routes
        </p>
<div id="thepage" data-role="page" style=padding:25px>
	<div data-role="header"><h1 style="text-align:center">Welcome to the CrowdCycle Pilot Test</h1></div>
	<div data-role="content">
	<img src=images/ss.PNG style="padding:25px" align=right>
	<P>5/31/2011</P>

<P><B>Dear community member,</B></P>

<P>We invite you to explore the beta version of <a href="http://maps5.trimet.org/cc/m.html">CrowdCycle</a>, a Portland State University and TriMet collaboration that will create a community biking suitability map and database. Our hope is that people will use these products to share their knowledge and register their opinions about the bicycle infrastructure in our area. Information from this open-source and open-data mapping project can be used for a variety of purposes, from research, advocacy, and transportation planning to improving directions on TriMet&#39;s forthcoming multimodal trip planner.</P>

<P>The pilot user interface for CrowdCycle is built for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.), but it can also be used on most web browsers (but not Internet Explorer). Click the &quot;Locate&quot; button to re-orient the map to your current location, and use the &quot;Layers&quot; button to select from several base maps. The clickable &quot;Bike Routes&quot; overlay layer shows you the current average &quot;Suitability&quot; vote for each street or trail segment. The colors range from dark green (five-star) to dark orange (one-star). When you click a segment, you are given the name and type of infrastructure (if any) and asked to vote on one or more qualities of that segment. These include overall suitability for bicycling, perceived safety, family-friendliness, wayfinding (signage), and pavement quality. Each time you click a star, a vote is submitted. On a web browser, hovering over each star gives you a qualitative description of that rating.</P>

<P>Streets that are a part of Metro's bike route network have been given 30 votes each at a particular value.  The value of these votes is based on the facility types (trail, bike lane, bike boulevard, etc.) in Metro's bike dataset (for instance, a street with a bike lane is given 30 votes at 3 stars).  These streets have been &quot;seeded&quot; to provide a starting point in the discourse, but we expect that community votes will greatly outnumber seed votes in time. Researchers and trip-planners in the Portland area also use this data to conduct analysis or in the creation of a set of directions.  Do you agree with these ratings? If you don&#39;t, vote! If you do, vote anyway! We also encourage you to vote on non-bike infrastructure streets (which appear in grey until they receive a vote) as these are the routes that we know the least about. For now, the bike route layer includes only central Portland, but the entire metropolitan area will be available in future versions.</P>

<P><B>After you vote on some routes, please let us know what you think by answering a few (or even all) of the following questions:</B></P>

<P>1) First, a little about you: How often do you ride a bicycle? More than once a week, about once a week, or less? Do you ride to commute, for fun, or both?</P>

<P>2) What can be done to improve the site in general? Is there anything you are having trouble using, or is there something that doesn&#39;t make sense? What features would you like to see on the upcoming desktop web-browser interface?</P>

<P>3) Play around with different base layers. Which ones do you like, and why? Are there any other base or overlay layers you would like us to make available?</P>

<P>4) Do you like the bike route color scheme? If not, what would you change?</P>

<P>5) What do you think about the descriptions for each star rating? Any suggestions? What about the choice of qualities? Is there anything else you&#39;d like to be able to vote on that we didn&#39;t include?</P>

<P>6) What kind of incentives would get you to participate? For example, if you voted a certain number of times, you could get a coupon for a coffee or for gear at a bike shop. You might also earn prestige points in the user community. What would get you to vote, keep voting, or use the site to plan your rides?</P>

<P>7) How do you feel about the routes being &quot;seeded&quot; with institutional ratings? Do you feel these may influence community members?</P>

<P>8) Are you interested in downloading the resulting data?</P>

<P>9) What smartphone, web browser, or other system did you use to access the site? Try more than one if you can. Did you notice any bugs? Did it run fast enough to keep your attention?</P>

<P>10) Finally, we would like to get your opinion about some future features. We are considering adding several elements for the release of CrowdCycle 1.0. Which of these do you think are essential, and which are unnecessary? What would you like to see added?</P>

<P>-A login feature tied into social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. This would allow you to keep track of your votes, look at the votes of other people with similar biking habits, follow your friends, and participate in discussions.<BR>

-A comment field for each feature, allowing you to submit qualitative information about why you take this route instead of alternate routes, where the pavement gets bumpy, etc.<BR>

-A neighborhood- or route-based wiki/discussion board for users to talk about the routes and infrastructure in their area.</P>
   
<P>Please send your answers and any additional feedback to <a href=mailto:crowdcycle@gmail.com>crowdcycle at gmail dot com</a>, preferably by the end of the day on <B>Saturday, June 4th</B>. If you have any questions for us, please don&#39;t hesitate to send those along as well. <B>We encourage you to forward this link to your friends and associates. Thank you for your help!</B></P>

<P><I>--- Grant Humphries and Melelani Sax-Barnett, PSU graduate students</I></P>

<h2><B><a href="http://maps5.trimet.org/cc/m.html">Go to CrowdCycle Beta</a></B></h2>

	</div>
	<div data-role="footer"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
